H.C. Wainwright initiated coverage of Acumen Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ABOS) with a “buy” rating and $15 price target. The stock closed at $4.88 on June 29.
Acumen is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel disease-modifying approach to targeting toxic oligomeric, Abeta, a key underlying cause of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Analyst Andrew Fein writes that Abeta oligomers have gained increasing scientific acceptance as a primary toxin involved in the initiation and propagation of AD pathology.
Acumen is focused on advancing a targeted immunotherapy drug candidate, ACU193, and establishing proof of mechanism in early AD patients.
“We think recent anti-Abeta trials have shown the importance of amyloid cascade hypothesis, indicating that removal of amyloid plaque might have a modest improvement in cognition, yet none of them clearly showed the role of oligomeric Abeta in AD, which ACU193 tends to test,” Mr. Finn said.
ACU193 is a humanized, affinity-matured, immunoglobulin, IgG2m4, which lacks the inflammatory effector functions of other IgG subclasses, “thereby making it less prone to ARIA-E, a major safety issue with current anti-Abeta therapies,” he added.
